Rules
Alaska Solitaire rules at a glance
- Use one standard 52-card deck.
- Deal all cards into seven tableau columns.
- There is no stock pile, waste pile, reserve, or redeal.
- Foundations build upward by suit from ace to king.
- Tableau cards build by suit, either one rank up or one rank down.
- Any face-up card may move with every card above it, even when that packet is unordered.
- Only the leading card of a packet has to fit the destination.
- Empty tableau columns accept kings or packets led by kings.
- Face-down cards flip open when they become the top card of a column.
- Aces and kings do not wrap in the tableau on this page.
- Win by moving all 52 cards to the foundations.
How to play
How to play Alaska Solitaire
Alaska Solitaire is a one-deck foundation game from the Yukon family. Your goal is simple: move clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades to their foundations from ace through king. The interesting part is how you uncover the buried cards without a stock pile to feed you later.
Pick any face-up tableau card. That card and every card above it move together as one packet. The packet does not have to be ordered. The selected card only needs to land on a same-suit card one rank higher or lower. A 7 of spades can move onto the 6 of spades or the 8 of spades, and any loose cards above that 7 ride along.
Setup
The Alaska layout on this page
Alaska uses the same opening deal as Yukon. Column one starts with a single face-up card. Columns two through seven each have a staircase of hidden cards covered by five face-up cards. All 52 cards are on the table before you make the first move, so the game is about rearranging visible packets to reach the hidden cards underneath.
Column 11 card1 face up
Column 26 cards1 down, 5 up
Column 37 cards2 down, 5 up
Column 48 cards3 down, 5 up
Column 59 cards4 down, 5 up
Column 610 cards5 down, 5 up
Column 711 cards6 down, 5 up
Core rule
The up-or-down same-suit rule
Alaska's defining rule is easy to say and surprisingly slippery in play: tableau cards build by suit in either direction. A 10 of diamonds can accept the 9 of diamonds or the jack of diamonds. A 4 of clubs can accept the 3 of clubs or the 5 of clubs. The suit must match, and the rank difference must be exactly one.
That two-way movement creates temporary suit chains that can reverse direction. You might use a 7 of hearts as a landing place for the 6 of hearts, then later use the same 7 as a landing place for the 8 of hearts after the column changes. The flexibility helps you open the tableau, but it also tempts you into circular moves that do not reveal anything.
Examples
Legal and illegal Alaska moves
The card you select is the front card of the packet. If that front card fits, the rest of the packet comes along even if it is a complete jumble. If the front card does not fit, the move is illegal no matter how useful the carried cards look.
Legal6 of hearts onto 7 of hearts
Legal8 of hearts onto 7 of hearts
LegalA messy packet led by a queen onto the jack or king of the same suit
LegalKing-led packet into an empty column
Illegal6 of hearts onto 7 of clubs
IllegalAce onto king, because this version does not wrap
Empty columns are king spaces in this version. A bare king can move into an empty column, and so can any face-up packet led by a king. A queen-led packet cannot fill a space, even if a king is somewhere inside the packet.
Foundations
How foundations work
Foundations are calmer than the tableau. Each suit foundation starts with its ace, then builds upward: 2, 3, 4, and so on to king. Only a single top card can move to a foundation. A selected packet cannot go there, even if its front card is the next card in suit.
Because the tableau can build up or down, some middle cards are valuable connectors. Do not rush every possible foundation move. A 6 of clubs might be needed for either the 5 of clubs or the 7 of clubs while you are still uncovering hidden cards.
No stock
What no stock pile changes
Alaska has no draw pile and no second pass through the deck. Every useful card is already on the table, either visible or buried. That makes hidden-card access the main measure of progress. A move that reveals a face-down card is usually better than a tidy move that only rearranges cards you could already see.
Since there is no stock to break a deadlock, empty columns and same-suit connectors must do the work. The best moves tend to uncover cards, create a king space, or prepare a same-suit landing card for the next reveal.
Strategy
Alaska Solitaire strategy that respects the chaos
Start by scanning for moves that uncover a face-down card. Alaska often offers more legal tableau moves than Yukon because each same-suit card can sometimes work in two directions. That freedom is useful only when it changes the board. If a move does not reveal a card, create a space, or set up a reveal, treat it with suspicion.
Keep same-suit neighbors in mind. A 7 of hearts is useful to both the 6 and 8 of hearts, so moving it away can close two doors at once. Middle ranks carry a lot of traffic. Low cards matter for foundations, high cards matter for empty columns, and the middle cards stitch the tableau together.
Use empty columns deliberately. A king-led packet that opens several hidden cards is worth a space. A king-led packet that merely parks clutter may cost you the only flexible column on the board. Before filling a space, ask what hidden card or suit chain that move actually helps.
Avoid comfort loops. Because up-or-down moves can reverse, it is easy to shuttle the same suit cards back and forth. If the board looks busy but the hidden count is not dropping, stop and look for a move that changes access rather than shape.
Mistakes
Common Alaska Solitaire mistakes
- Forgetting that tableau moves must match suit, not color.
- Using the up-or-down rule for neatness instead of uncovering hidden cards.
- Filling an empty column before a useful king-led packet is ready.
- Moving middle cards to foundations while they still connect two tableau ranks.
- Assuming a carried packet has to be ordered before it can move.
- Expecting ace-king wrapping, which this version does not allow.
Difficulty
Is Alaska Solitaire hard?
Alaska is not hard because the rules are long. It is hard because the rules give you enough freedom to make persuasive, unhelpful moves. The tableau looks open, yet the hidden cards still control the game. Same-suit bottlenecks can freeze a column even when many visible cards remain.
Compared with Yukon, Alaska can feel more fluid in short bursts because cards can build both upward and downward. Compared with FreeCell, it is much less exact because 21 cards begin hidden and there are no free cells for precise parking.
Winnability
Is Alaska Solitaire winnable?
Alaska Solitaire is not always winnable from a random shuffle. The open packet movement can rescue awkward positions, but hidden low cards, missing same-suit connectors, and badly timed king spaces can still stop the deal. Undo lets you explore a route, but it does not turn every shuffle into a solution.
This page does not publish a fixed win rate because a trustworthy number should come from this exact implementation and many measured deals. Rule choices such as king-only spaces, no wrapping, and unlimited undo all change how the game feels in real play.
Variants
Alaska variants and house rules
Alaska belongs to the Yukon branch of solitaire, so rule descriptions can differ between books and software. The biggest points to check are whether empty columns are king-only, whether aces and kings wrap in the tableau, and whether foundations are built manually or with auto-move assistance. This page keeps the version direct: king-only spaces, no wrap, manual foundations, and no stock.
Russian Solitaire is another same-suit Yukon-family game, but it normally builds only down by suit. Yukon builds down by alternating color. Alaska sits between those feelings: it is stricter than Yukon because suits must match, but looser than Russian Solitaire because the rank direction can go either way.
Nearby games
How Alaska compares with Yukon, Scorpion, and FreeCell
Play Yukon if you like the same deal but want color-based building instead of suit-based building. Play Scorpion if you want same-suit packet movement to become a harsher sequence puzzle, with complete king-to-ace runs as the goal. Play FreeCell if you want every card visible and prefer exact planning over hidden-card discovery.
Alaska is best when you want a tableau that can change dramatically from one move to the next. It has enough visibility to reward planning, enough hidden information to stay tense, and enough two-way movement to make even a small same-suit connection feel important.